Social Media Profile:
What is Pinterest?
For those of you who are unfamiliar
with Pinterest, it is a social media website where people can share ideas and
things they find on the Internet. One way to describe it would be an electronic
pin board. To use Pinterest you make a profile and then create boards. Boards
are used to categorize the things you pin. For example, you could have a board
entitled home décor ideas, one called favourite recipes and one called dream
wedding. There are many categories that you can explore. Some of the categories
include, food and beverage, holiday and events, wedding, health and fitness,
home décor, gardening, cars and motorcycles, architecture, DIY crafts, animals,
art and more.
As
you can see there is something for almost everyone. The idea is that you “pin”
something you like that you find on the Internet or you can “re-pin” something
you like that you find on Pinterest. Other people can see what is on your
boards and you can look at other people’s boards. Basically, the overall
purpose for the site is to provide a positive space for people to interact and
share ideas with each other.
The
layout of the website is a very simple concept. You can see pictures of
everything and when something catches your eye you could click on the image to
access the website it is from.
Who uses Pinterest?
From
the beginning of 2011 to now the amount of users on Pinterest went from
approximately half a million to over 18 million (Websense, 2012) . It has
spread very quickly via word of month. It is predominately used by women (80%).
17% of users are between the ages 18 and 24. 25% of users are 35-44 and 30% are
25-34. Therefore, the majority of users are young to middle-aged women. This
media website is most popular among Americans, as 68.6% of users are from the
United States (Hussain, 2012) .
The
image below shows some vey interesting statistics that help identify the type
of people using Pinterest.
click to see larger image (Hussain, 2012)
How Can Marketers Use Pinterest?
Because of its growing popularity
Pinterest is an excellent method for companies to not only advertise products,
creating brand awareness but by also giving consumers ideas on how to use the
products. It is so effective because
once something is pinned it can be repined over and over again with a link to
the company website.
An
issue with marketing on Pinterest is that there would be some restrictions in
the market segment you could target. For example, most users are female so you
would have to focus on appealing to women, which is not easy for all brands.
Marketers would just have to make sure they get the right message across to
reach their target market. The main way to do this would be to make sure the
picture you post is representative of the this message and will catch the eye
of the desired audience.
Below
is a video that shows the benefits marketing on Pinterest.
(MDGadvertising, 2012)
Visit Pinterest!
Works Cited
Hussain, A.
(2012, May 29). 10 Pinterest Infographics: Visual Explanations for a Visual
Social Network. Retrieved October 2012, from HubSpot Blog:
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33078/10-Pinterest-Infographics-Visual-Explanations-for-a-Visual-Social-Network.aspx/?utm_source=pinterest
Visit Pinterest!
Works Cited
Hussain, A.
(2012, May 29). 10 Pinterest Infographics: Visual Explanations for a Visual
Social Network. Retrieved October 2012, from HubSpot Blog:
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33078/10-Pinterest-Infographics-Visual-Explanations-for-a-Visual-Social-Network.aspx/?utm_source=pinterest
MDGadvertising (Writer). (2012). Marketer's Guide to
Pinterest [Motion Picture].
Websense. (2012, May 4). Pinning down Pinterest.
Retrieved Oct 2012, from Security labs Blog:
http://community.websense.com/blogs/securitylabs/archive/2012/05/04/pinning-down-pinterest.aspx
Thanks for sharing. I just googled it and it 's really helpful in a lot of areas. Thinking about it as a market, it do have the potential power of being the next google or youtube as it's simple, accessible and valuable in advertising fields. In my opinion now it could be the stage of raising awareness from customer and accumulate well-reputation.
ReplyDeletethis is a pretty cool idea. its good for a small business as they can be part of different "boards" and get attention from users who look at those boards. its a great way for websites to gain users and for businesses to reach the people they want to reach. very interesting post.
ReplyDeleteAdding to this point. Pinterest allows business to grow their brand online. It drives traffic and maximizes the use of landing pages through click-through s. For small business's its an excellent and cost effective way to advertise their services.
DeleteGreat blog Kaila. Pinterest is very new and interactive. I agree with Dusan's point about the small businesses. They can use this to be apart of different boards and get attention from users who look at those boards. It's a great way to get your business out there and reach new customers.
ReplyDeleteI really need to make a Pinterest account. I always see accounts and the pictures they have pinned and I am so jealous I don't yet have an account.
ReplyDeleteAnd now for my comment:
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I really liked your blog kaila.
Pinterest would be an excellent source for advertising and marketing a company concept,a logo, and/or a service. I understand what you mean when you talk about target market restrictions, but think about the great volume of women especially women aged 35-44. This does limit the products that can be advertised to this market, but with the amount of growth this could be very positive and build awareness of this market (keeping in consideration that this is your target audience).
Great blog post!
ReplyDeleteI don't know very much about Pintrest, but I always see my girlfriend on it. She always shows me neat posts from the companies she chooses to view. It is kinda neat because she can choose what she wants to see. This is crucial for companies because people are basically segmenting themselves.
Great post Kaila. Pinterest is one form of social media advertising that is not as common as ones such as Facebook or Twitter, but I think is over looked by businesses. As you stated it is definitely a great way to promote brand awareness and reach to a wide range of people in your target audience.Es specially women, I tend to find they are much more into the Pinterest women aside from men.
ReplyDeleteI found this post very informative as I had no idea how Pinterest works. It may not be as popular, but I continue to hear about it so it seems as if it will be as popular as Twitter and Facebook in no time. I agree that it is a great way to promote brand awareness.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
ReplyDeleteI just recently signed up for Pinterest. It's an excellent tool for businesses that specialize in the creative field to showcase their works. It's uses a highly visual and unique platform that sets it apart from the rest.
Pinterest has become a very successful network and it is very useful to visitors. Pinterest is a great tool for people research and find categories that interest them. Very creative and well put together website.
ReplyDeleteThis was an interesting read. I've been hearing a lot about Pinterest lately, and this post convinced me to go and check it out. This website could turn out to be a tremendous tool for marketers because it basically skips the need for segmentation. Consumers will come to you without too much effort. I believe that Pinterest is somewhat similar to Stumbleupon ( http://www.stumbleupon.com/ ), which has a similar theme of categorized products and topics.
ReplyDeleteGreat post.
Great post Kaila. I agree with you on being a very popular tool for people to get deals and know about things happening around them. It is also a great tool for mist business especially in the retail business to advertise their products and get promotions.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason for the hike in the number of users is the availability on apps on smartphones. It is very easy to navigate trough the app rather than the website. People can do it on the go, especially while shopping.
It is the Era of the technology and social media that is driving most of the events happening these days. These tools shoyld be wisely used and smartly exploited to achieve the maximum success for a business.
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ReplyDeleteI have only recently heard of Pinterest, I have heard only good things from my friends who use it. The growth indicated in your post clearly shows that it is doing quite well for itself, Overall a great post.
ReplyDeleteGood job.